Auburn's Gene Chizik has praise for Kris Frost at the ESPN 'Car Wash'

Gene Chizik and six other SEC coaches are making the rounds at ESPN headquarters in Bristol today to talk about their teams and conference.

Talk about bad timing -- in light of the headline-grabbing Penn State news.

Anyway, the coaches hit all the ESPN TV networks, the radio network, the websites and everything else associated with ESPN, and that's why they call it the "Car Wash", as coaches go through the assembly line of hosts and shows.

One of the first stops for Chizik was an online Q&A, where coaches get to pick the questions they like and not even publish the ones they don't. They all do it. Sportswriters, in their chats, too.

Perhaps the most interesting specific question Chizik chose to answer was about redshirt freshman linebacker Kris Frost, who would have played last season had he not hurt his shoulder in preseason practice. Coaches talked about him trying to stay on the learning curve in spring practice, but Chizik offered a more positive spin today:

Is Kris Frost competing for a starting spot at OLB?

"Absolutely. Kris has had a good spring. He stayed healthy. He learned a lot. There were a lot of fast moving parts for him at the beginning of spring. By the time it ended, I felt the game slowed down for him. He's in the mix for the starting job and we expect him to compete for it."

Later, on TV on SportsCenter, Chizik addressed the Penn State issue when asked about the challenges now facing Nittany Lions' coach Bill O'Brien

"This is where you leadership skills will be put to the test," Chizik said. "'Where are we going from here?'

"He's going to have to re-recruit his team to stay there. And he's going to have to re-recruit the players he's recruiting. They're going to have to a great leadership plan."

Chizik said of the NCAA ruling: "You know they did all their work."

(Side note: Former Auburn defensive coordinator Ted Roof is at Penn State, as is former player and now graduate assistant Zac Etheridge.)

In general, Chizik said new offensive coordinator Scot Loeffler will "do a little bit of everything."

And of playing in the toughest division in college football, he said: "Four of last five national championships come from the SEC West, and that pretty much tells the story."